Page 31 of Near Miss

He nods once, thoughtful, before grinning. “Yeah, alright. I look incredible in a tux.”

I wrinkle my nose, roll my eyes like he’s insufferable instead of funny and maybe sort of wonderful. But I’m laughing a bit when I speak. “Shut up.”

He smiles at me, entirely different and entirely radiant, before he points at my tray of practically untouched food. “Eat your food. I paid a lot for that.”

Greer

Events like this—stupid, made-up, fictional, entirely derived so the health network can pat themselves on the back for producing such fantastic practitioners of medicine, when really we’re all miserable and exhausted and disillusioned with the whole thing—really bother me.

I tend to avoid places like this, and not because I’m so mean and miserable like all the PGY1s seem to think because they saw me snap at someone for dropping a retractor.

They’re noisy and unpredictable. And even though I wish it was different—thatIwas a different, healed, whole person—unpredictable, loud, jarring noise still bothers me.

I debate not going for a long time—it’s quite the debate, actually. I wage it in front of this ornate, golden floor-to-ceiling mirror in my room that’s draped with eucalyptus. Stella gave me the plant because she said it’s calming. It hasn’t worked.

I think I had a temporary blackout in the cafeteria last week—imagining the childhood of someone that, for all intents and purposes, I don’t really know—inviting him to come with mewhen I should have declined the invitation myself. There are all sorts of names for these things—and depending what field of medicine you practice, you might diagnose it differently.

And seeing as I’m very confident I didn’t have a cerebrovascular accident, this probably falls firmly under Rav’s jurisdiction.

Our brains are funny. Wonderful, magical, endlessly fascinating, and capable of hurting us horribly—but funny.

The leaves of the eucalyptus rustle when the air conditioner kicks on, and I narrow my eyes at it. I’m tempted to jump up and rip it down, but the eucalyptus queen herself kicks open my bedroom door.

Stella smiles brightly at me in the reflection of the mirror. Auburn hair piled high on her head, jade eyes wide with delight. She holds up the seemingly endless pile of garment bags weighing down her arms.

I point up at the eucalyptus. “This stuff doesn’t work.”

One eyebrow rises and she widens her eyes. “I don’t think the eucalyptus is the issue.”

In a futile attempt, I reach my arm towards the leaves, but my fingers only skim them before I give up. I watch in the mirror as Stella tosses all the bags on my bed and starts undoing all the zippers, revealing swathes of colour, silk, and to my horror—taffeta.

My lip curls up. “What are all these for? I have dresses that are perfectly fine.”

She barely spares me a glance, smoothing out an emerald silk dress. “The plain black ones you’ve worn to every other event you’ve had to go to?”

“Yes.” I tip my chin up. “And they’reperfectly fine.”

My sister turns to me and snaps her fingers. “Well, it’s not every day your sister is being honoured at a banquet with such a prestigious award.”

“I’ve gotten lots of awards, actually.” I point to my bookcase, and it’s not like it’s covered in trophies, but I was chief resident, and stacks of conference awards or high-impact research papers sit askew on the shelves.

Stella rolls her eyes before tipping her head back. “Okay, well her first award she was so humble about.”

It’s because I don’t want it, I think.

Not that I’ve ever sought out awards, and I was never really one of those highly competitive students or residents when it came to accolades and achievements. I just wanted to study and to do well.

But there’s something about this one that feels nefarious, somehow.

An award for clinical and surgical excellence in fellowship.

It makes that spot under my right rib twinge and all I can think about is what I gave up, and what I take from people.

I don’t tell my sister those things—I don’t want to hurt her. Thoughts like that, how I wonder if maybe I’m doing something wrong when I take an organ from a healthy body and put it into someone else because I have no way of knowing what path these people were set upon without their choice—those are thoughts reserved for Rav.

Stella huffs—loud and significantly deeper than the actual cadence of her voice—before she tips her head back again in exasperation.

She stops rifling through the gowns and pulls out her phone.

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